by Nancy Rosati

Terry Richmond is not a big star ... yet. In fact, if you haven't seen
The Scarlet Pimpernel, you probably don't know her name. She's a
gypsy, a member of that group of people without whom the stars would never
be able to do what they do.

Terry made her Broadway debut in The Scarlet Pimpernel after
spending eight years trying to get there. She's been with the production
from the beginning and has survived the transition period between the two
versions of the show. In the first version, Terry had a solo at the top of
"Storybook" in Act 2. Although that has now been cut, you can still hear
her singing the opening measures on the OBC recording before Christine
Andreas takes over.

Terry is married to Christopher Boll, the Production Manager at
Playwright's Horizons. She holds a B.F.A from Webster Conservatory of
Theater Arts and has appeared in regional productions of A Little Night
Music, Jesus Christ Superstar and Pump Boys and
Dinettes. She also does a solo cabaret show when she can find the
time.

NR: Tell me a little bit about your family.

TR: There's four of us actually. I have a brother and he's the
oldest. He's in banking up in Vermont. He's the "normal" one - the "legit"
one. I love him for it. Who else do we call with all of our questions?
He's married and they're the ones that just adopted my nephew, Benjamin,
from Korea this past year. That's the only niece or nephew that I have, so
it's been a big deal. And then there's Heather. We're all three years
apart, so Chris is the oldest, and then Heather, then there's me, and we
have a little sister, Tori, who's actually a micro-biologist. She just
finished her undergrad at Hunter and she has a job at a bio-tech firm on
the west side.

NR: So, she's in New York also. Are your parents still in
Vermont?

TR: My dad's now living with his wife in Cape Cod and my mom is
still living in my home town of Montpelier, Vermont. Both of my sisters
are here because I'm here. Heather graduated from Dartmouth and she didn't
know what she was doing and I said, "Well, if you're going to do nothing,
don't do it in Dartmouth, Vermont. Come do it in New York." So she moved
and we were living together and then Tori was in the process of dropping
out of college, so we said, "If you're going to drop out of college, and
you need somewhere to go, we're always here." So she came and stayed. We
all lived together for a long time and then fortunately, before we killed
each other, we spread out, and we all live in fifth floor walk-ups on the
east side. I'm about to break out of the "upper east side fifth floor
walk-up" because I'm buying a house.

NR: How small was the town you grew up in?

TR: Well, it's the capital of Vermont, but it is very small.
It's about 8,000 people. Small enough that everyone knew our business all
the time. There were 103 in my graduating class and that was the only high
school in the town. It was great for what it was. I couldn't wait to leave
and now I love to go back.

NR: When did you leave?

TR: I left to go to college. I graduated from high school in '85
and I went to St. Louis, Missouri, to Webster Conservatory of Theater
Arts, and that was basically because I didn't really know what else to do.
I wanted to study musical theater and I went to my guidance counselor at
MHS and said, "I want to study musical theater. I hear that this is a
major" and she said, "I don't know. Let me look it up in my book." And in
her book, you could study music at a music conservatory or you could study
theater, but you couldn't study musical theater. So, I kind of tried to
find out on my own with limited resources, and limited anything, being an
18 year old in Vermont. But, Heather was at Dartmouth at the time and she
was doing some summer work in their summer program and met some designers
who went to Webster and who were working at Dartmouth, so they suggested
Webster. I also heard that Carnegie Mellon was great so I basically
applied to those two and didn't get into Carnegie Mellon. They offered me
a scholarship. I thought I'd go to Webster for a year and then I would
know the deal. St. Louis seemed at least ... I thought I should be going to
New York but nothing was turning out that way, so I went to St. Louis and
I had four really, really great years there. It was a musical theater
program and I got a B.F.A., and I didn't take any real courses. My
Advanced Placement Biology meant nothing. But it was great.